Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — 11 May 1913, Cologne

Experiencing Nature and the Christ Principle

Cologne, May 11, 1913

Notes from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

If we look back at the way in which souls celebrated the summer solstice festival before the Mystery of Golgotha – what we now call around St. John's Day – and at how they felt and experienced that time, we arrive at very different feelings from those which the souls of the present experience at this moment of the year. In the past, the souls – and these are, after all, our own souls – lived with nature as a reality. The falling of snowflakes, the whispering of the wind in the forest, the light that flashes from lightning, the rolling of thunder, the patter of rain, all this was the speech of the gods for the souls of that time; and they understood that language and lived the life of the gods. When the sun barely showed itself during the winter around Christmas time, it also became lonely and dark inside them, and with the falling snowflakes they felt how they were cut off from the activities of the gods. And when spring came and everything began to sprout and sprout, the souls themselves came to life again, and it became warm in the souls. And in proportion as the sun sent its rays to the earth, they could again listen to the conversation of the gods; then they felt at one with nature and with everything that spoke from it. But the same souls can no longer hear the same, no longer experience it. The gods are becoming more and more silent, and we see the seasons changing without feeling more connected to them. Why is that?

This is because, after the mystery of Golgotha, everything had to change. That which used to affect people from the outside is now supposed to work within the person themselves. All those forces that once worked directly on people in nature are still working, but now they work on people from within. With our inner soul forces, which are to become stronger through the descent of the I into us, we must find the forces within ourselves that once spoke to us from outside in thunder and lightning, in rain and wind. Now they speak to us in our knowledge, now they bring forth moral strength and wisdom in us, now they warm us inwardly and enable us to understand all people, to speak from person to person and to establish the love that shall bind all souls together, so that humanity will rediscover itself as one great unity, since the whole of humanity lies spread out in each person's heart.

The festivals that people now celebrate with the changing seasons are no longer external festivals, where people cheered or became silent together with nature, but have now become internal celebrations. And the hope arises that one day, in full realization, we will fully experience them. When the young green sprouts up and all spring shoots awaken, then the feeling awakens within us that the slumbering seed of the spirit will awaken in us, and we celebrate Easter in this warming hope. And when we approach the Feast of Pentecost and thus the high point of the year, we expect that this spirit, as the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Truth, will come into us and bring us knowledge and wisdom. Those people who set the dates of the holidays in the post-Christian era did so out of the deepest wisdom and intuition.

The Luciferic spirits wanted to give man that which they already had on the old moon, the spirit self or the fifth principle, before man was quite ready with the development of the fourth principle or the I. Thus, man received the fifth principle in an immature state. The true form of the fourth principle is shown to us by Christ, and this is indicated to us in the forty days, or four times a small cycle of ten days, which elapse between the resurrection and the ascension. Only then can the fifth principle come to people in the right way. And that is indicated in the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, which in turn comes ten days later - or as a fifth cycle - after the Ascension.

We know that the Elohim want to give us the powers of the ego on earth, through which we can absorb spiritual wisdom into our minds. However, this can only happen slowly and gradually, and all further development will be available for this purpose. The Luciferic spirits, who had already absorbed the powers of the I in the ancient world and were therefore far ahead of man, now want to give man the fifth principle. They do this by directing attention to the possibilities of the earth that can be fully grasped by the intellect. All arrogant natural science comes from Lucifer's will. He wants to permeate man with the fifth principle, bypassing the fourth. The ego-powers are used to sharpen the intellect for earthly purposes; they lead it further and further away from contact with the gods, who want to impart their wisdom to us, just as it now flows down from the occult world in the theosophical teachings. If we absorb the teachings that are issued from this temple, then the wisdom that they contain will gradually be able to be processed by our minds and the powers of our ego will grow, so that we will increase in inner moral strength, which will bring us true freedom, which is determined from within the human being.